An Amicable Spar Amongst Brothers: The Training Never Ends.
The sounds of shattering rock howled throughout the valley. A huge string of curses followed that were barely intelligible. Both of those sounds got louder and more intense every second that passes by, scaring the local wildlife into fleeing the vicinity. On the rocky ground within the valley was Shino violently smashing some boulders and nearby debris, looking visibly agitated. Well of course he would be, he was mad that he lost to his twin brother Shinzō yet again, gaining another black mark to his long string of loses. So of course, he took his anger out on the environment, destroying nearly everything around him to relieve his stress. Of course, he would probably get scolded by his mother and his diligent youngest sister Shinoka after receiving complaints from a bunch of people, but that was more or less to be expected. After about two hours worth of carnage, he decided to take a break and sat down on the only remaining rocky outcrop, taking out a flask of water from his pocket and started drinking. Being tired of having to deal with the fits thrown by Shino, Nakano sent her youngest son, who had just returned home a few days earlier from his mission, to talk to Shino instead. As it made sense to talk to him more so than to scold him, as it was getting repetitive and was yielding a little to no results, a decision supported by her daughter and Shino's sister. Shintai who despite having a little to no experience training or sparring with his brother, was always on amicable terms with Shino and always treated him with utmost respect and even encouraged him to chase his goal of surpassing Shinzō; made for a wise choice, for someone who could reason with Shino. Reaching just as the carnage was ending, Shintai stood and watch his brother go through a similar frustration that he goes through internally and while unlike Shino he never actualizes it with his own physicality, he empathized with Shino in his struggle for acknowledgement and a sense of achievement. As he watched his brother finally calm down and hydrate himself, he stopped masking his own chakra and started walking towards the man. "Hey, big brother!" exclaimed Shintai greeting his brother with a goofy grin and a wave, as he continued to approach Shino. "Just me today, dont worry, nee-chan or mama aren't going to show up", he added to comfort Shino. Shintai sat next to Shino, reaching into his back pouch, he retrieved a colorful food pill and handed it to Shino; which was popular among the new generation, while not as potent as the original rations pill, they offered to be a filling snack. "Eat up!" he exclaimed in a playful tone. Shino recognised that rather goofy voice as his youngest sibling Shintai. Turning around, he saw the boy waving his arm greeting him whist approaching. He always saw Shintai as somewhat of a brat, but nonetheless, Shino held great respect for him as he was one of the few of the siblings that did show some degree of respect. Shintoshi was completely distant with everyone and is apathetic towards most things. Shinzō always saw himself as the superior twin, which pissed him off to no end. Shinami never takes him seriously at all and spent most of their interactions trying to screw with him and Shinoka, whist he knew that she cared about him and trained with him more or less acted harsh towards him, somewhat creating a distance between them. Thus he enjoyed the company that Shintai provided. Grabbing the food pill from his younger brother's hand. Shino consumed it, the flavour being something he didn't really prefer, but he didn't mind. It was the thought that matters. "So kid. What brings you here to this far flung corner?" Shino asked in rather casual tone. Having sat down next to his brother, Shintai began surveying the area around him, looking at the decimated stone structures as he subconsciously let his right up up against his chin with the index finger vertically against the cheek and the thumb supporting his chin. "That is a lot of anger. Not that I am any different. Maybe if I were to do the same and not internalize my anger, I would achieve a much more clearer view of this family", he thought to himself. As Shino finished eating and asked him a question, Shintai who was lost in his thoughts was spooked by his older brother. "Ehhhh?" he reacted as he turned his head towards Shino. Avoiding a direct eye contact and looking down at the ground, he began rubbing the back of his neck in a manner that was akin to what is commonly known as the pain-in-neck gesture. "Well, I just wanted to be away from mom for a bit. She still treats me like a kid and I don't really mind your company", he added. Suddenly his gaze widened and he turned to Shino, "OH! I just realized, we have never trained together, have we?" he asked in a rather surprised tone. Shino chuckled at the young boy's response. It was an entirely appropriate reply, their mother Nakano can be a bit overly affectionate. He knew that feeling since she also treated like a kid. To this day, she still likes to downright embarrass him and the others in public. Was she doing what any other mother does? Or does she secretly enjoy seeing them squirm. Nah, not likely. Shino got up, feeling rejuvenated from the rest and casual conversation. "Hm. It's true we never did spar together have we." He felt a smirk form across his face. Normally Shino trained by himself or his former teammates. He never once recalled Shintai training with anyone else baring their own mother. Though that may be that Shino never stuck around a lot, chasing down whatever challenge awaited him and possibly because he was too focused on his own improvement to notice his younger brother. He decided to be a good older brother and granted him a request. "How about it Shintai? You up for a bit of a spar?" He threw two coloured stones towards the young boy. One red, which signifies no and one blue, which signifies yes. It was a thing that Shinoka created when two parties wanted to do a particular request, so Shintai should know the meaning. The stone the young boy caught would determine his answer. Shintai's eyes sparkled with a sense of confidence and excitement, a spark that could not be contained and radiated throughout his body language. He instantly caught the blue stone thrown at him between his index and middle finger, thus giving Shino his answer on the spot. "I thought you would never ask! Bring it on!" he exclaimed. The prospect of training with someone else, especially a family member who could help him further gain battle experience and get stronger was something the boy could never deny, given his goal of surpassing the first Chiekage and proving his worth to the world at large. Shino's eye's widened, his mouth made a subtle grin. Kid's got some serious determination. The look in his eyes reminded Shino of the old days, when he wanted to prove that talentless self of his to others and that determination definitely seemed to have passed on to the youngest sibling. Things definitely are gonna be interesting. "Hah. Glad you accepted the challenge brat. I am kinda curious as to how far you've gotten. Well then... let's get started." Shino swung the sword held in hand down onto the ground. The impact shattering the immediate earth near him and sent a bunch of rock airborne. "Since you enjoy catching rocks so much, I decided to fulfil your wish." Shino said in a rather cocky tone. He was always known for being a cocky hothead and this was no exception. Swinging his Khanda in the air, he hit the airborne rocks with force, hurling them at great speeds towards the young boy. Of course he didn't use full force against Shintai. He wouldn't want his younger brother maimed with extreme prejudice. Rather, it was with enough force that getting hit would only leave a bruise at worst. He wanted to see how he would act. Shintai assumed a fighting pose, after jumping back a few yards, as he studied Shino's movements. "Oh, don't worry, brother, I will show you how far I have gotten...", he said with a cocky smile. Seeing Shino smash into the ground with his sword and then appearing to move his unique looking double-edged straight sword towards it, was apprehensive of Shino sending the rocks flying at him; wasting no time and using his prodigious and almost subconscious mastery of chakra control and flow, crossed his left arm's index finger with its middle finger, forming a variant of the original "clone seal", allowing him to summon a perfect solid copy of himself on the battlefield in an instant. This was particularly impressive, especially for a newly promoted chūnin, as one handed seals are a rarity in the shinobi world. The clone then proceeded to jump vertically and perform the snake, horse and tiger seals in rapid succession; condensing the original number of seals into just three, and spewing out an impressive stream of fire akin to that of a flamethrower. This was, by no doubt, the Uchiha Clan's coming of age rite technique, the famed Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu. The stream of flames descended down rapidly, aided by gravity, to not just stop the rocks in their tracks but proceeded to melt them relatively quickly. The flames created an actual visual barrier between the Shintai, his clone and Shino, allowing the original to move out of Shino's line of sight. The flames continued to pour down, aimed straight at Shino; as they crashed into the ground, its sheer force and heat immediately created a crater that was just over fifteen meters wide and two whole meters deep. Given that it was a clone and holding back, only as an intention to stop the rocks and create a distraction for the original body, this was quite notable feat. While Shintai was not going for the kill, he had witnessed his mother and elder sister fight and had a good gauge of their abilities, so he assumed that Shino would be able to either evade or counter that caliber of attack. The heated flames coming towards the earth. A scorched fury devastated the ground, vaporising a good chunk of rock in proximity and creating a good sized crater. Even though Shintai was the youngest sibling in the family, he already created such a powerful flame, even if he did have assistance from a clone. Shino chuckled, it seemed the young boy wasn't slacking off in his training. "You're pretty good kid. Took me quite a while to master such flames." Shino swiftly waved his sword, blowing the flames out. He was visibly unharmed by the flames even though they possessed such intensity. He protected himself by releasing the chakra from his body, creating a sort of body armour. Of course this was a temporary measure and Shino released it upon dispersing the flames. He jumped out of the molten crater and landed on the rim. "Since you've already shown skill in the family tradition, I'll show you another one." He formed handsigns at a quick pace, forming flames within his body. Expelling heated flames from his mouth, they formed into several heads resembling a skull of a dragon towards Shintai, the radiant heat despite soaring through air melted the ground, showed just how intense the flames where. While Shintai becomes preoccupied by the dragon heads, he also threw a couple of heat resistant shuriken towards him as well, concealed by the intense heat. As the clone landed and saw Shino wisthstanding the attack with nothing but his chakra, he was taken back a bit but at the same time, very impressed. "I expected him to at least try to dodge or use a technique but heh... Can't expect anything less from big brother, I need to get serious, if this is going to go anywhere", he thought to himself. He smirked as he appreciated Shino's kind words and complimented him back, "You are too nice. That was quite impressive there, so that's what its like to be strong, huh? Don't get too cocky now!" The real Shintai had already used the opportunity that the wall of flames bought him to get out of Shino's sight and had seemingly disappeared from the battlefield. His eyes widened, as he felt the build up of chakra, with his senses going crazy, the clone knew the next blow could obliterate him with ease and foil the plan. Forming the clone seal, it produced two clones of its own, as the three of them simultaneously slammed their hands on the ground in response to the volley of flaming dragon heads and erected four high reinforced wall of earth, with six heads of narwhals pointing towards Shino in all their spiky glory. The clone knew it would either be barely enough or be blown away by Shino given their power difference. As the dragon heads slammed into the great walls, they began smashing and destroying great chunks of Earth and vaporizing bits of the narwhal heads, despite the wall being reinforced with chakra. Four fire balls were all it took to blow away most of the three outer walls, with the fifth greatly fragmenting and somewhat vaporizing a good chunk of the inner wall; debris was flung in the way of the clones. One of them weren't so lucky and were crushed by it, causing them to explode into smoke, while the other two clones were taken out easily by the shuriken that followed the initial assault. However, the diversion had worked, it had made Shino believe that they their intention was to take the attack head-on. The real body had already sensed Shino's position using the magnetic fields and his own chakra signature and had moved directly below him. As the assault on the clones ended, in the brief moment of celebration that he allowed Shino's psyche to have, he grabbed onto his kunai tight and launched himself at blinding speeds from beneath Shino, with his kunai equipped arm moving upwards in a straight line. If Shino could not block the attack or evade in time, this kunai attack could prove to be lethal. A suprise attack of Shintai came from below, armed with a kunai at hand, rush up towards him to deliver the hit. Shino is well aware of Shintai's capability to suppress his chakra at will, though this ability to avoid sensing wasn't an innate trait like their father or Shinzō's. However his suppression ability had a noticeable loophole. If Shino couldn't sense the boy himself, he could use his sensing ability on the ground in close proximity. Picking up disturbances in the earth, Shino could anticipate where Shintai would strike and thus react accordingly. In close contact, Shino blocked the kunai with his sword and using his free hand, pushed Shintai a good distance away from him. Normally if someone tried a trick like that, Shino would punch them with extreme force, his extreme strength more likely than not end up killing the unfortunate victim by leaving a big gapping hole in the torso. Of course this was a spar so excessive force was unnecessary. Shino sheathed his sword and cracked his knuckles. "Get ready for some hand to hand kid." Shino charged forward and engaged in close quarters combat against him. Shintai braced himself and landed rather gracefully despite being thrown away, though he was thankful that his brother did not try to punch him. "Hand to hand, huh? Bring it on!" he said ever so confidently, as he had been both restraining his strength and speed so far. Being someone who was capable of dodging sound-propelled shuriken with his physical speed, even without needing to drop his ankle and wrist weights, Shintai was rather confident in his ability to avoid and study Shino's attacks. However, not wanting to take any chance, Shintai reconsidered and removed his wrist weights; each weighing in upwards of three hundred and sixty pounds, made quite a difference in his speed, especially, the speed of his punches. Grabbing his specially designed knife, he assumed a foreign stance and awaited Shino's move, anticipating his charge. As Shino charged, Shintai turned his feet side ways for a moment and then completely vanished out of what would normally be the range of a human's line of sight; peripheral vision and all, accounted for, in that moment, Shintai had broken the sound-barrier two times over, without infusing chakra into his feet. Appearing a good fifteen yards behind, he awaited Shino to show off his moves. "From what I can gather, his fighting style is pretty straight forward, utilizing raw strength and speed to overwhelm a foe along with slashes from his swords. Need to see more. Need to keep my distance", he thought to himself. "So you took your weights off to increase your speed huh? Impressive but you're gonna need more than making a sound Shintai." Observing the young boy disappearing from sight and reappearing behind him, Shino decided to put a bit more effort into speed. In an instant, Shino suddenly rushed towards at such high speeds that he practically disappeared, tearing through a large chunk of rock. Moving at such insane speeds, Shino completed over hundreds of laps running in circles around Shintai. While breaking the sound barrier is good for a novice, a truely fast shinobi should be capable of moving faster than the speed of lightning, something that Shino and the rest of the family could casually do. The speeds that Shino was going at created several afterimages as a side effect at he was gonna use that for his next attack. Shino threw more shuriken at Shintai from all directions, flying through the air at high speeds. The friction caused from the air resistance set the metal stars ablaze, making them even more lethal than before. "Better shift to a higher gear. Or else you won't get out on time Shintai." The sound of Shino's voice echoed through the high speed blitz. Shintai instinctively jumped backwards and cut off his leg weights whilst in mid-air, before he could land. His battle instincts kicked in and overrode his actions, as if he could feel it in his bones, the speed and power difference between him and Shino; although, he probably could, given that he is a sensory type. As Shino approached and started tearing up the earth beneath him, Shintai's jaws nearly dropped but he managed to contain his stoic look, he desperately moved his head around him, trying to observe Shino's movements but failed. Even though, cutting off the leg weights had instantly doubled his speed, and by infusing his chakra, he could further enhance his speed, there was no way he could make up for such a difference. Despite his perception being more advanced than his own speed, he could likely only track high-hypersonic speeds with his eyes, making things moving at re-entry speeds or twenty six times the speed of sound or faster extremely hard for him to see. The after images weren't helping either, but he knew he could not just give up yet. Shintai formed the ram seal as Shino began throwing shurikens at the boy; channeling chakra to his feet, he was able to achieve a burst of speed that tripled, no, quadrupled his speed. Shintai knew tracking Shino's moves were hopeless, so he began using his enhanced speed to react to the barrage of shuriken hurled at him at ablation speeds with his chakra knife and while he was successful in striking down and hitting a few off their trajectory, his victory was cut short. For every two shuriken that he could counter, there would be three that either would barely scratch him or miss him by hair's length, which was entirely chalked up to luck. Soon enough, a shuriken hit him and the partially melted shuriken lodged itself in his left thigh. Shintai groaned lightly to avoid giving away him clearly being in pain. "NO! I refuse to lose!" he announced, as his chakra spiked and he gained a small increment in speed but what truly improved was his dexterity and reflexes. His hair covered his face but he perfectly countered and even sliced a few of the shuriken with precision, as he landed on the ground, he stared at the shuriken incoming from all above and behind. It was no mistaking it, his eyes had changed, they now featured a bright red color with two distinct tomoe in each, it was the famed Sharingan. As the shruiken rained down upon him, his arms themselves began creating mini sonic booms and setting sparks to the air around him, as they moved so fast, he began slicing down each and every single shuriken while standing still and precisely cutting them with his right arm. "I can see...", he murmured. While he still could not fully follow Shino, he could predict his next movement and study some of his muscles moving, which was good enough for Shintai; dashing towards Shino, he intercepted the man and his sword, hoping to stop them both in their tracks. He smirked as he let his blade clash against his brother's sword, "I'm done with you running actual circles around me". Shino was surprised yet also exicted. Shintai caught track of his movements and blocked him with the sword within his hand. He saw his younger brother's two tomoe Sharingan within his eyes, no doubt the young boy used them to keep track of him. Shino's mouth formed into a smirk, it seemed that Shintai had already awakened their father's Kekkei Genkai, something Shino could never awaken nor possessing his mother's Byakugan. He really did draw the short straw compared to his siblings. But nevertheless, Shino's goal was for his younger brother to get stronger, and to do that, he will need to push Shintai beyond his limits, his Sharingan being proof of that. "Heh, now you're starting to catch up. But you're gonna need more than those funky eyes to stand an ounce of a chance." Shino delivers a taunt towards the young boy, the apparent goal being to fire him up even more. With the clash of swords, Shino delivers a swift kick to the ground, his strength causing the ground to fragment, causing rocky shrapnel upwards towards Shintai. Using the distraction, he uses his free hand to whip out a shuriken and uses it in an attempt to slash him. Shintai on his heels, tilted back and released his transformed knife with his free hand, revealing it to be a clone. A tactic utilized by Shintai, often, by creating extra clones and then transforming them into weapons that he could keep on his person, not only could he have them transform in emergency situations but also "destroy" these weapons of his during or after combat, to relay the fighting style and arsenal of an enemy to his real self for information gathering; he was so dedicated to his craft, he would have his clones create additional clones and have them transform, which made for an excellent scouting technique, as if an enemy were to spot the clone and destroy it, the transformed clone would still remain and be able to gather intel. However, that was the past now, seeing the situation that he was in, he was forced to reveal his trick early on and used the clone as a body shield to protect himself from both the shuriken and a few pieces of debris, which gave him enough time to jump back and clap his hands together. "You just gave me a bunch of free tools, brother...", he smirked, infusing his chakra into the pre-existing and newly formed debris in the area. By infusing them with his chakra, each piece of debris became as hard as diamond and gained some level of resistance against fire. "Debris Waltz!" Shintai exclaimed on the top of his lungs, flinging every single piece of sharp, pointy and even rounded gravel, stone, clay and even loose dust in the area towards Shino. The loose dust created a visual wall between the two and no doubt could lead to eye irritation, which was his intention all along. "Dammit, being forced to use so many techniques, this is getting tiresome, I need to end it fast...." he murmured to himself, looking at Shino. "Let's see you dodge this, while dealing with all those projectiles!" A gigantic ball of fire descending from the sky began making its way to consume both Shino and Shintai. "I'm taking us both out!" he said, to further sell this narrative, as he knew the sensation of scorching heat could be felt by the victim. "Hmm. He sacrificed his clone as a shield. Even with the transformation tricks, he had to abandon the plan to avoid the strikes." Shino stood in thought, aware of the incoming debris and a massive fireball dropping from the sky. His control of the debris looked familiar, then he realised it was similar to their mother's control over objects. It seemed that the young Shintai took more from their mother than either realised. With the mass of debris in his field of vision coming towards him at high speeds, Shino resorted to a simple but practical method. He swung his sword in the direction of the incoming debris, the force of the swing created a strong shockwave that repelled the bits of matter away from him, overpowering the young boy's control. "Well that's one thing down, now onto the massive elephant in the room." A fireball coming from the sky sounds downright dangerous, but their was several things wrong with the picture. A technique of this scale would require a massive amount of chakra to use and even though the siblings were born with large amounts of powerful chakra, Shintai was young. There was no realistic way he would learn something like this at a young age, no matter how much of a prodigy they were. Not to mention Shintai didn't telegraph it, no matter how subtle, thus one conclusion came to his head. "So the punk put me under genjutsu." Genjutsu was one of the skills Shino was never good at. Even now he still can't cast a genjutsu at all. Though he did learn how to dispel it from Shinoka, though in bad taste put him under several Mangekyo Sharingan illusions until he developed at least a form of resistance to it, the process taking several months. Controlling his own chakra, Shino broke the illusion Shintai put on him, the humongous fireball in the sky disappeared. "Hmph. Seems like you got some talent in genjutsu. You're just like Shinoka. But enough of the praises, let's see what you do next." Shino charged electricity in his hand and fired it towards Shintai, the bolts of controlled energy forking and heading towards him at high speeds. Shintai looked to his left side and noticed several tall trees about several yards away from him. Forming the half ox sign with his left arm, he summoned two strange four-headed that launched themselves from his forearms and almost instantly wrapped themselves around the bark of a rather large tree; pulling Shintai towards it in the process, this would prove to a faster means of movement than his own body-flicker as his summons were incredibly fast, when it came to movement. However, despite them being able to move a little faster than fifty thousand feet per second, it still was not fast enough to leave Shintai completely harmless, as his right arm was still somewhat damaged by the bolt of electricity; destroying his sleeves in the process, and living the tip of his fingers burnt. While the rest of his arm was relatively unharmed other than a few scuff marks on his forearm, he felt an intense numbness on and around his fingers and wrist, and this was just by briefest of contact. "That could've been bad, really bad", he said to himself. "You're really something, huh? I knew the genjutsu would not work on you but I thought it would buy me enough time to do something else, I guess I was wrong, heh!" Shintai hurled a kunai attached with three explosive tags at great speeds at Shino. The tags each had a shortened length, being only one third of a normal tag, while still maintain the same charge and power as a normal tag, which allows for explosions that give a much smaller window of opportunity for one to dodge the assault. The kunai was hurled with precise calculations in mind, to explode as soon as it was 10 centimeters away from Shino, he had worked out the math perfectly, the charge was active and the speed was perfect, there was no time for the kunai to be repelled in his direction and explode near him. It was designed for a very specific distance, one between him and Shino. Perhaps, explaining why he chose that particular tree to retreat to. With Shintai using his summons to escape the lightning bolts, Shino abandoned the attack. To the rather cocky personality of Shino, it seemed like Shintai was running out of gas in the tank so they say as hid behind some rather large vegetation. The boy threw some explosive laden kunai, an obvious distraction, but nonetheless a nuisance. He surrounded himself with lightning chakra, causing electric surges to arch off his body. Using it as a shield, the lightning, drawn towards the metal projectile hit, causing an immediate explosion from contact with the explosive tags. A large amount of smoke was created in the aftermath, allowing Shino to use the smokescreen as cover and landed on the branch of a large tree near Shintai's location. "You better get ready little bro. Cause things are about to get heated up in here." Shino yelled out whist forming handsigns and sucked in a great amount of air in his mouth. "Fire Style: Majestic Flame Burial!!" A surge of fire burst from his mouth. A technique of the Shin family, the flames consumed the vegetation in seconds, leaving nothing behind. The intense heat caused the very ground to heat up, causing the rock to form into lava. The fire was coming towards Shintai, causing unfathomable amounts of destruction. Using nearly every last bit of chakra he had left, Shintai formed the clone seal for one last time, immediately summoning nearly two dozen shadow clones, as all of the clones began working on conjunction, with no time to waste, they performed a series of fire ninjutsu, to produce several giant fireballs that mimicked Fire Release: Great Flame Flower in order to cancel out the surge of fire. Fighting fire with fire was no longer a phrase but an actual literal thing that Shintai was hoping to accomplish. "Times like this is when I wish I had access to water-nature...", he thought to himself. As his twenty one clones fought off the massive fire, the real Shintai managed to swallow another food pill; akin to the one that he and Shino had consumed before, and while it would not fully restore him, it would allow him to at least try and use his newest technique, in an attempt to land an unforeseen blow. As both the fire techniques cancelled each other, all of his clones dispersed creating a thick wall of smoke, due to the smoke left behind by individual clones, using that as a cover, in the briefest moment, Shintai began forming his technique. Suddenly a spiral began forming in the center of the smokescreen, causing the wall of smoke to now spin; in an instant, the "eye of the storm" became visible, as Shintai rushed Shino with all of his might with a technique that did not require hand signs. This was his first time using it without the aid of a clone, so it was not as big or potent, but without a shadow of a doubt, it was the Fourth Hokage's legacy. With only a few inches between his right arm and Shino's solar plexus, he unveiled the spiraling sphere of chakra as he shouted, "RASENGAN!!" Shintai had put everything he had left in this single technique and being hit by this technique would be several times more devastating than his fire technique earlier that managed to impress Shino. Given a much weaker Shintai when tired was able to create a clone that performed a Rasengan which had enough power to send his opponent flying over fifteen yards and into a giant rock pillar, resulting in the sixty foot rock pillar being violently fragmented by the impact and rotational power of the technique, a feat, this fatigued Shintai could easily achieve, Shino would need to ramp up his chakra defenses far more than he had throughout this battle. Though, the real challenge would be to achieve that in less than one twentieth of a millisecond. The collision of flames caused the rampant energy to disperse. To Shino's observations, Shintai literally had to assemble clones and amp himself with chakra restoration pills to counter his own flames. Indeed such a feat was nothing to scoff at as the technique Shino used would turn a lake into a parched crater. The smoke from the shadow clones dispersing would temporarily blind him, but it was a few seconds too much. The very next instant was Shintai carrying a glowing sphere in his hand, a technique that Shino immediately recognised as the famous Rasengan. Shino didn't have the opportunity to dodge with Shintai being a few inches away from him so he would have to resort to one thing. Quickly cloaking himself with his own chakra, Shino braced for the impact as the sphere came into contact with his left arm. He continued holding out as his arm started hurting a bit from continous exposure. "Haha seems like mother trained you good. To think you'd learn the fourth hokage's signature jutsu. But I think it's time to put an end to this." Shino grabbed his sword and swung hit towards Shintai's hand, hitting the sphere out of his palm. The rasengan flew a good distance away, hitting the ground with enormous force. The sphere left a good sized hole in the earth. Cleary it was a powerful move. "The rasengan is said to be the highest level of of shape transformation, but if Shinzō saw it he wouldn't be too impressed. Especially compared to his own." Shino said in causal tone, as he cracked his tightened arm and neck muscles. Being struck in his arm with the sword felt like a force of a hundred boulders hitting his bone, such was Shino's strength, even when suppressed. Shintai fell on his knees, grasping his injured arm, as he gasped for breath. With him huffing and puffing and his legs somewhat starting to shake, it had become crystal clear that Shintai had not only depleted himself but had overexerted his chakra in an attempt to impress his brother. Shintai used his sheer will power as he grinded his teeth together and forced his leg muscles to work. While he was back on his feet, his legs and arms continued to shake out of fatigue and stress. "Not like this... no, I can't give up just yet" he murmured. Failing to project his voice any louder. Forming a fist with his left arm, he attempted to punch Shino, but the punch had barely any force behind it. If caught, he would probably collapse in the aftermath himself. While it was true that Shino was much stronger than the average Jōnin by a few times, Shintai could not careless about the great difference in their power. He wanted to surpass him, he wished to surpass every single member of his family, especially their father. If he could not even make his older brother sweat, what good was all that training for. Seeing his younger brother on the verge of collapsing, Shino rushed over and grabbed Shintai. He could sense that his chakra was low, his Sharingan fading away from his eyes. It seemed that he went overboard when he came to training the young boy, his arm was obviously bruised and exhaustion was painted over his face. Even though the hotheaded and arrogant Shino enjoyed a good fight, even he knows when to call it quits, especially when his youngest sibling is involved. "That's enough Shintai. You did good, but the training is over." He rested the young boy on the ground and reached into his pocket. He gave Shintai a bunch of pills and some water to help regain his energy as he sat down next to him. "Haalloo!!" A loud voice reverberated through the air. The voice sounded eerily familiar, with Shino turning his head over to the direction of the noise. In the distance, a young woman came running up towards the siblings waving her right arm in the air. That woman Shino recognised gave him a look of annoyance as it turned out to be the eldest daughter Shinami. "Wow Shino. I can't believe you beat up our little brother. Frustrated that you couldn't beat anyone lately?" She asked in a rather joking tone of voice. She was the biggest tease out of all the Shin siblings. In stark contrast to the rather straightlaced Shinoka, Shinami enjoyed screwing with everybody and seeing the reactions, thus for this reason the highly temperamental Shino was a favourite target. A wide grin formed on her face a short she gazed at the scene. "You're such a huge bully Shino, I think I'm going to have to tell mother. No doubt she's going to kick your ass over this." A look of fright literally spawn on Shino's face, no doubt the calm and friendly Nakano can turn incredibly frightening. Shintai drank down the entire bottle of water, he could feel the pills having their effect, as he slowly began to regain his strength. Regaining full consciousness, Shintai chose not to speak out. He was still dazed from the realization of how far he had to go and despite the praises from his mother and sensei, he was merely a spoiled child with gifts that he did not know how to use. However, he was broken out of his daze as Shinami's voice reached his ears. He did not want to turn to her, out of fear, while he knew that Shino would face the brunt of the punishment, he was still scared to death of his sister, who unlike his mother, did not spoil or overtly praise him but instead treated him like a brat. Though, his mother would likely only scold him lightly for being reckless, Shinami would definitely pull his ears again and make him clean the house. Shintai pretended to be still asleep by lowering his chakra and closing his eyes, hoping she would not notice. "Please don't come here, please don't come here, please don't come here" he almost prayed. Category:Role-Play